His Fault
by Complica
Summary: Written Long before X2. The required 'Marie goes home again' fic.


Title: His Fault  
Author: Complica  
Email: complica@strato.net  
Disclaimer: Not mine, sue elsewhere  
Archive: Takith If thou wantith   
Rating: pg-13  
Summary: Marie looks for someone to blame  
Category: I believe this qualifies as angst…or maybe just rambling   
drama.  
Warnings: Implied domestic violence and a scene that could be   
interrupted as sac-religious. So basically…this one isn't happy. It's   
also unbetaed. Read at your own risk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
"I should go with you"  
  
Logan was rhythmically clenching the steering wheel until his   
knuckles grew white and the leather-covered plastic began to bear the   
marks of his frustration. She had expected a much more persistent   
Wolverine, perhaps even a screaming match along the side of   
interstate 55. But this was the first time he brought it since they   
hit the road. Marie thought it might have something to do with   
the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign they just passed.   
  
It had been five years since she'd seen this place. In those five   
years she had heard nothing from the people obligated by law and God   
to love and protect her. Eight months spent scared and alone,   
inexcusable, unforgivable. Three weeks after she got the letter, a   
postcard really, before she let herself remember. It was his fault,   
entirely; his fault she had to leave. Her mother would have protected   
her, even moved out of Mississippi if she needed too. Marie got her   
strength from her mother, a women who only feared one man. It was his   
fault.   
  
"You are going with me, sugar…"   
  
His eyes bore into her for a brief moment then drifted back to the   
highway. Marie didn't look up. She just continued to stare at the   
reflection of trees moving across her window in a constant flash of   
color, only broken up by brown and green signs pointing out exits and   
rest stops.   
  
"That's not what I mean. I should be there when you…." He hesitated,   
probably looking for words that would be easier for her to handle.   
But this is the Wolverine we're talking about. Sugar coating does not   
come standard. "…when you see him."   
  
Marie didn't answer, mainly because she couldn't trust herself to   
tell him no. The loudest parts of her mind wanted Logan with her for   
this. That was probably because the loudest parts of her mind were   
Logan himself, though by now he had managed to blend himself with her   
own mind to the point were she didn't feel as if she had a voice   
raging in her head. That was how he stayed when the others had pushed   
themselves out. Logan didn't force himself to the front of her mind,   
didn't rage against the walls she had to put him in at first to keep   
herself sane. Eventually those walls expanded into the deeper parts   
of her mind until they disappeared entirely and Logan became part of   
her.   
  
But it was the quieter parts that told her she needed to do this   
alone. She wasn't her mother. She wouldn't be afraid of him, and that   
was enough to overpower all the protesting, no matter how loud it   
got, both inside her mind and from the man sitting beside her,   
casting her short, worried glances.   
  
"You shouldn't have to do this alone…"   
  
His tone was defeated, resigned. He stared out the windshield looking   
so much like that man she first met after hitchhiking through two   
countries.   
  
("When they come out….Does it hurt?")  
  
("Every time…")  
  
She turned towards him for the first time since they crossed the   
Mississippi line and waited for him to glance back at her before   
favoring him with a smile. She wanted him to know she was sure about   
this, sure that she would be OK. But most of all she wanted to get   
that look off of his face. It just didn't belong there.   
  
On her mother, on herself… but not on him, on anyone but him.   
  
"Ah'm not doing this alone…"  
  
  
There had been silence until they pulled up in front of the iron   
gates. They both sat there, neither moving or speaking as a small   
party of nicely dressed people trailed out and stepped into freshly   
washed cars, stopping only to hug and shake hands with each other   
before slowly slipping away. They were all dressed in black, and not   
one of them smiled. But none of them looked terribly sad.   
  
Only when the last car had pulled away did Marie venture to look up.   
The old wrote iron fence traveled out in front of them, disappearing   
into the horizon. Had she looked behind her she would find the image   
mirrored itself into the setting sun, broken in the middle, near   
where they were parked, by an open gate. Behind those bars were a sea   
of rolling hills, only the faintest of green brightening the heavy   
grayish tint. The land was broken up by equally placed slabs of   
granite, barely seen iron name plates, and the occasional elaborate   
statue carrying the figure of an angel or a sobbing Christ, bleeding   
hands outstretched.   
  
Near one particular granite slab, decorated with a small grouping of   
plastic flowers and one moderately sized wreath made of white   
carnations, stood a shadowed figure, dressed in the same nice clothes   
the others had been wearing. Her expression was far more animated.   
There was regret in her eyes and a bit of fear, but it was coupled   
with the image of peace.   
  
Marie stared at the figure for a few moments before reaching for the   
handle and opening the door.  
  
"Marie."   
  
Logan's hands still clutched the steering wheel and he didn't look at   
her, but the plea in his voice was unquestionable.  
  
"Ah'll be ok…" And she stepped out and closed the door behind her.  
  
  
It was damn cold and the evening winds were beginning to flow in from   
the east, almost as if they wanted to blow the sun out of the sky and   
under the horizon. It fit Marie's mood and she paid it no mind as she   
trudged up the trail towards the figure that still stood motionless,   
the only thing telling it apart from the marble statues being its   
short brown hair flapping behind her in the breeze.   
  
She swallowed hard as she approached the figure's side, meaning to   
announce her presence and not to quiet the butterflies swimming   
around in her stomach. She willed herself to speak even though her   
heart was pounding so hard Marie thought it might block out all other   
sounds. In reality, the only person who might notice it was Logan,   
and he was still back in the truck.  
  
"Hello Mother…"  
  
The women, who had turned at the sound of Marie's approach, flinched   
as she caught sight and heard the voice of the daughter she never   
thought she would see again. Her mouth hung open for the briefest   
moments until the decorum and regality Marie had always seen   
associated with her mother reasserted itself and with an intake of   
air, she replied.  
  
"Hi there, sweetheart."   
  
  
  
They stood in silence again for a few agonizingly long moments, both   
staring at the headstone before them. It was Marie's mother that   
spoke first.  
  
"Ah didn't think you'd come back here."  
  
Marie's eyes darted up, "You said Ah could…"  
  
Her mother didn't return her glance. "And Ah meant it. Just didn't   
think you would want to be here …for this."  
  
"He was mah father, and even if he didn't love me, it doesn't mean……"  
  
Marie's mother reached to grip her daughter's arm instinctively, but   
flinched back before making contact, as if she had been stung. Marie   
tucked her leather-clad arms across her chest to keep the heavy sob   
that threatened to emerge from her breast concealed and shot her   
mother a knowing look.   
  
Her mother's eyes feel to the ground in something akin to shame.   
Softly she whispered, "He did love you…"  
  
A barrage of accusations flew through Marie's mind in an instant and   
a low growling radiated through her from the parts of her mind   
that most strongly resembled Logan. Outwardly, Marie only shifted her gaze back to the headstone, the hurt pulsing in her eyes.   
  
"He did Marie…It's just…The people around here…Hell, the people   
everywhere…They wouldn't…We couldn't…" Every last bit of regality   
disappeared and was replaced with the same fearful stumbling women   
that had stood silently as her husband passed judgment on their only   
child. Marie wasn't sure whom her mother was struggling so hard to   
convince. "It wasn't his fault…he was afraid…" The last words were   
spoken in the barest of whispers and had Logan been here, he could   
have smelled the rolling wave of terror waft from her.  
  
Marie looked to her mother's face, which was downcast as if she   
expected to be slapped hard for daring to present a weakness in the   
man. Her daughter couldn't understand how a block of granite and a   
body buried six feet below could do that to the woman who otherwise   
was so strong.   
  
It was his fault. He had some kind of iron grip on her mother's soul   
that would keep her from standing up to him whether he was alive or   
dead. And Marie could have shared her fate, could have been the same   
trembling oak, standing strong against all the elements the world   
could throw at her, except for one evil bastard with an axe. Her   
father had spared her that fate, had pulled her from the ground and   
given her to the elements that she stood so proudly against. And for   
that she would wish forever to dig him up from the ground just to   
kill him again, though at the same time she would have to thank him.   
But she would never fear him.   
  
She turned towards the faint line of sun still being blown under the   
blanket of stone dotted hills and began to walk away.   
  
"Marie?"  
  
Her mother's pleading voice broke something in her. Marie began to run with the wind at her back, pushing her onward, a ship moving among a sea of graves. 

  
She darted in between the headstones, up and down the rolling hills,   
wanting to be far away from the image she had created in her mind.   
Her mother still cringing in fear of a ghost, but this time Marie   
stood by her side, carrying with her the same demons. Marie wasn't   
afraid of her father, never would be, but she was afraid of that. The demons that made her strong willed mother cower before a dead man's grave terrified her.

  
She wanted to be as far away as possible before the emotion overwhelmed   
her and the tears her father always mocked as weak begun to flow.   
Marie didn't want the to give him the satisfaction of mocking her   
from the grave.   
  
She only slowed when a statue blocked her path, a life size marble   
Christ, punctured palms turned outward and upward at his sides and   
tear-filled eyes transfixed heavenward. Marie walked towards it with   
rage and hurt and pain radiating from every step. She stopped when   
she stood eye to eye with it, glaring with newly found hate into the   
stone eyes that never met hers. It was his fault.   
  
She drew back and rammed the knuckles of her left hand into the stone   
figure's chin, her own tears matching those etched into the stone.   
Drawing her hand back when the sharp stabbing pain turned into a   
pulsing ache matching the flow of blood from her knuckles, Marie   
stared down at herself before turning her wide, tear-stained eyes up   
to the marble Christ. A chip of the marble broke from the figure's   
chin and Marie's blood now stained the stone, seemingly dripping from   
the wound. The strength left her then, and she collapsed to the   
ground in a sobbing heap as the sun finished its journey beneath the   
hills in a dazzling display of colors.   
  
  
Logan found her there only a few moments later. He had promised   
himself he would let Marie decide how she was going to do this, and   
she had decided to go alone. He had argued with himself since she   
told him about the postcard her mother had sent her, telling her that   
the bastard that had sent his only child to fend for herself in a   
world that loved tearing apart innocents like Marie, had died. But in   
the end, Logan had sworn to himself that he wouldn't pressure her.   
The emotion she was going through at the moment was more then enough.   
She didn't need to deal with a possessive Wolverine at the same time.   
He stepped out of the truck the moment she took off through the   
cemetery, but had stopped himself from going directly after her.   
Instead he took to wandering through the graves in the general   
direction Marie had gone, not following, just staying close in case   
he was needed. He smelled tears first, then anger and pain, but when   
he smelled blood, Marie's blood, as faint as it was, promises be damned, he raced after her.   
  
He looked down to her, curled on her side, sobbing into the neatly   
manicured grass that looked too gray to be real, then up to the   
statue and breathed in a sigh. Dropping to his knees, he cradled her   
to him, letting her clutch at him and sob into the denim of his coat.   
  
"I'm sorry darlin'… It's my fault, I knew you needed me here for this   
and I should have insisted on coming with you…So sorry, Marie…it's my   
fault…"  
  
Her breathing stopped but the tears keep coming as she looked up into   
his eyes. She looked like a spooked horse in that moment, ready to   
buck away from him and race wild into the distance.   
  
"N…No." She said in a broken but determined voice. "N…Not your   
fault."   
  
She sounded so sure, as if her entire world depended on those words   
being true. Logan didn't have the heart to argue with her. Instead he   
buried his hand into her hair and placed a kiss, too brief to for her   
skin to react, to her forehead and began to rock her as the sobs took   
her again.   
  
  
  
They made their way back to the truck some time later, Marie still   
leaning into Logan's arms for support. 

She was drained of all her previous rage and anger. It wasn't long   
before she was sleeping deeply, all curled up into the passenger   
seat. Logan just stared out of the windshield to the black and gray   
shaded world beyond. He thought rage would be boiling in him, as it   
always did when Marie was in pain. Instead he just felt empty, as if   
all that rage had been drawn out of him along with Marie's. Silently   
they drove through the night, neither looking back into the gray void   
behind them. Neither would see color again until the following   
morning, as they passed the "Leaving Mississippi" sign.


End file.
